Style combination · Pairs well

Pacific Barkcloth Design × Risograph

Two earth-toned inks on cream stock and a slightly broken, rubbed impression give print work tapa's material warmth without copying its motifs.

From the research on Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design

Mix them and make something Pacific Barkcloth Design Risograph

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Pacific Barkcloth Design, their arrangement from Pacific Barkcloth Design, the finish from Risograph. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design Risograph & Indie Print Culture

Type from Risograph: Hand-lettering
Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Colour from Risograph: Limited spot colours
Fluorescent & neon

Pacific Barkcloth Design avoids fluorescent & neon: this is where the two pull against each other.
Form from Pacific Barkcloth Design: Folk & sacred symbols
Angular & zigzag
Composition from Pacific Barkcloth Design: Modular grid
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Risograph: Misregistration & overprint
Grain & noise

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Risograph

Fiesta

Inter Tight, standing in for Neo-grotesques set large (e.g. Akzidenz-Grotesk, Helvetica)

Text · Pacific Barkcloth Design

Barkcloth beaten from paper-mulberry inner bark and decorated across Polynesia and Fiji for gift exchange at weddings, funerals and chiefly investitures. Motifs are transferred rather than simply drawn: rubbed over pattern boards in Tonga and Samoa, stencilled in Fiji, stamped in Hawai'i, then sharpened by hand. The palette is earth browns and soot black on cream bark, inside ruled squares and bands on cloths that can run past twenty metres.

Archivo; Pacific Barkcloth Design used Freehand-painted numerals and capitals on ngatu, from length markers to commemorative inscriptions and Faces with full support for Tongan, Samoan, Fijian and Hawaiian orthographies (ʻokina and macrons), e.g. Noto Sans, for accompanying text

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Risograph, with a counter-accent from Pacific Barkcloth Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design Risograph & Indie Print Culture

#f4f1ea ground · 36%
#3255a4 ink · 14%
#ff48b0 accent · 18%
#b9772f accent · 14%
#f15060 accent · 10%
#8a3b1f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4f1ea;
  --ink: #3255a4;
  --accent-1: #ff48b0;
  --accent-2: #b9772f;
  --accent-3: #f15060;
  --accent-4: #8a3b1f;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Pacific Barkcloth (Tapa) Design: Tapa is women's ceremonial wealth, made collectively and presented at weddings, funerals and the investiture of chiefly titles; particular motifs commemorate events, lineages and royalty, and some designs belong to families, villages or chiefly lines. Commission and pay tapa makers and their work groups (such as the koka'anga in Tonga), credit the island and the maker, and do not lift motifs from museum cloths onto products or treat Tongan, Samoan, Fijian and Hawaiian traditions as one interchangeable 'Polynesian' pattern.